Weekly digest #6

Cosmetic surgery regulated as much as your toothbrush : It turns out that in the UK, it is not that important to regulate that which is injected into your face, regardless of the horror stories that we have all heard (and possibly seen the effects of) when such procedures go wrong (or if you just have a bad reaction to the product). While I'm pretty sure that things such as Botox and wrinkle-fillers should be administered with some training and qualification (would you really trust a random person to do this for you), the British don't think it is that important to have such regulations in place. It scares me the ease with which one can get this done, so I hope that you're at least sensible if you do follow this route to beauty.
Personally, I am currently not friendly with needles, so having injections in my face would be a serious stretch. I don't know how I am going to feel when this actually becomes a problem, however. I am so scared of ageing, it is actually quite sad. What makes it worse, is the fact that there is nothing anyone anywhere is ever going to be able to do about it. Except cosmetic surgery I suppose. I'm going to have to cross that bridge when I get there, and hopefully look after myself well enough until then, so that that bridge isn't too big for my osteoporotic legs to jump across.

More bus strikes... Are they important? : Service delivery strikes, wage strikes, all these strikes seem never-ending, and just when they seem to have been resolved, it is a new year, so they get to strike again for even more! I understand that people should be given what they deserve and what they have earned, but wow, can't we just organise a sound policy that this just happens without a hitch? Whenever these strikes happen, I think it is always the innocent who suffer the most: like those commuters who need to get to work. Or when the teachers strike, it is the children who miss out on vital school time. I understand that that is almost how a strike is supposed to work, in that it implements a serious blow to the service, to make a serious statement, but I also think that it's not fair to those who are directly affected by it, when they are not involved in the processes.

Grahamstown roads: further proof that this is not my hometown... : And I mean this headline in the nicest way possible of course. The roads here are absolutely shocking. And, true to South African problem solving skills, solutions are never permanent: they try the cheapest option (filling up the pothole with sand) and then within a few days it will rain, just because it can, of course, and the hole will be back. That hole will be back with a right vengeance I tell you. My poor car knows real suffering from driving on these roads, and I am pretty sure the campus roads are maintained better than the ones mentioned in the link in the headline of this story. This makes me sad, because at the end of the day, they could have saved money by just fixing the hole properly the first time, even if it is more expensive, and then they wouldn't have had to worry about it again for a while. But no, we must save money now, and damage cars and pose dangers to drivers (and pedestrians) while we're at it.